By orphans I’m including everyone who can’t spend Christmas with their family, whatever the reason. Maybe they live on another continent, maybe they’re insufferable, maybe you don’t know them, maybe all of the above and you don’t have kids, whatever. The end result is: you don’t have a family to spend Christmas with.

I’m in this situation. And I don’t know anyone well enough (newish city and country) to crash someone else’s family Christmas.

Wondering how people in that situation deal with it so that maybe I can find something that’d work for me to tide me over this challenging part of the year.

Additional context: SO is really into it, feels bad when we treat it as just another day, so I feel the pressure to figure something out.

I’m reading every answer you share but not necessarily answer unless I have a follow up question or something meaningful to add.

We each shape our living spaces in our own ways, and I feel like sharing your own approach can often help inspire others.

This could be anything, small or large; from the kinds of furniture you prefer and how you arrange it, to the standard home improvement work, to how you decorate your spaces, and even how you choose to use them.

Desk setups/home offices/battlestations all count, and pictures are welcome!

If you have more than one passion, try and pick the one you are... Most passionate about!
If you can't, then go for it, explain why you have more than one.

• What is your passion? If it's something obscure tell us about it!
• How did you end up with that passion? What was the inspiration?
• How long has it been your passion?
• How do you practice or express it?
• Sell it to someone reading, why is your passion so great to you?

Spouse and I are trying to get bids from local solar installers and we'd appreciate some crowdsourced knowledge from Tilderinos. Questions first, then some context...

• In the current market, is "no, your equipment can't talk to the Internet" actually an unreasonable demand?
• Is there a term or phrase we should be using to look for, or guide installers towards, solar setups that fully function without Internet access?
• Are there any equipment types -- microinverters, for example -- that definitely will not work due to architecture?
• Are there battery controllers, or central inverters, that are known to play nicely (read: can be expanded later) with batteries from other manufacturers?

For each installer, we start the conversation with "it's essential that the system work entirely offline, without Internet." We're flexible on nearly everything else: system size (probably ~15kW), number of panels, battery, etc. Our first concern is making sure that a 25-year investment is not dependent on some company's cloud servers; secondly, that we're not inverting our dependency graph by making our electric power reliant on the whims of our ISP. There's also the privacy angle. But we're not looking for a totally off-the-grid setup, just trying not to lock ourselves into a bad purchase.

So far, one third of the installers (3/9) have immediately told us we're unreasonable and to just go away. Two others said "sure!" and ghosted us afterwards. One was a little more forthcoming, saying that the equipment requires periodic connections to the manufacturer for monitoring and they couldn't provide a warranty without it. The last two provided bids, but it's difficult to tell if they're telling the truth given the conflicting info we've seen.

I am honestly not sure making this post is a good idea, but I want to at least make an honest attempt at this topic and putting it in ~life.men - because it seems silly that this topic tends to get more discussed in ~life.women - and it obviously rarely ends well.

Please approach this with the best good faith intent and lets be civil.

I am 100% in the target group for that video, though I hope this doesn't end up being just another discussion of the same video but the topic in general, as I am a straight white man having worked in tech for two decades. And I am manager with women on my team, and I have been rightfully called out on certain biases and can recognize having glossed over problematic behaviour in the past.

I personally don't take much offense on the #YesAllMen thing, but I can understand why it can be irksome and there is a part of the me where it doesn't quite feel right to me, even though I know it isn't intended that way. It can feel like being lumped together in a "guilt by association" type of way, that we generally don't accept with other groups in society. And what I often have a problem with in these types of discussions, is how a very wide range of problems with very different severity is being lumped together - and I don't think that is fruitful. We see examples of open hostile sexism like "you fucking whore" or outright sexual assault, and most men of course don't recognize themselves in those sort of examples, and thus get defensive. Instead we should be more open to look at all the seemingly "minor" things that aren't as severe, but from what I think I understand from women on being a minority in a workplace is the "death by a thousand cuts"-effect. A constant reminder of seemingly minor things that just adds up, and is rightly being experienced as part of more severe forms of sexism.

Not sure where I am going with this - as I didn't write this as a well thoughtout thesis - just a quick way to try to start a hopefully healthy discussion in the right space, but I assume no men here on Tildes are outright sexually assualting women, but I would 100% believe that most of us still have blind spots that could be improved and is indirectly part of the problem.

Hi! My partner and I want to follow this guide and add LED strip lighting to bookcases we're putting up. Partner has significant experience with assembly/DIY home improvement projects, I have minimal but nonzero experience with soldering. We are both a bit lost on how to pick LED strip lighting and a controller.

Info about our setup:

• We will have several bookcases next to each other
• We would rather drill a slightly bigger hole in the side of the cases to pass the strip itself in between the cases rather than deal with extra soldering joints
• We have picked out conduit already (basically all of the non-electrical components)
• There are seven shelves on each case so we'll need seven LED strips
• There will be roughly 10 feet (a bit less) of strips per shelf, collectively across all the cases
• We would like to have RGB controls, but we don't care about syncing to music

Questions:

• What LED strips would you recommend? Longevity being probably the most important part
• What controller/power supply should we use? Keep in mind neither of us is super experienced with this kind of thing so the less complicated the better
• Anything else I should be asking that I'm not? Any advice in general?

Edit: Realized I sent the wrong link originally. This is the guide we're following.

I walked out of the grocery store. It was pretty windy, and right outside the doors there was a bird flying. Except, because of the wind speed going against the bird, it wasn’t really moving at all. Instead it was just kind of floating in one spot. Imagine a bird flying on a wind treadmill, and you’ve got the right idea.

It was a tiny little thing, but I thought it was awesome. It kind of blows my mind that something like that is even possible, and seeing it up close was a delight. It brightened my day significantly.

Share a small but bright moment from your day.

If you were in a long (10–15 years is long to me) relationship but split around that mark, could you share?

Specifically what led to it, how did you know it was the right thing to do, how did you do it, and how did it go? How long did you have to think about ending the relationship before actually doing it? How did the other person react? How did you deliver the news?

And how did you handle the aftermath, both emotionally but also materially (splitting all your things, deciding who keeps what trinkets, finding separate accommodations, etc)?

I’ve been going through rough times for quite a while and I think I might have had enough… I’d like to learn from others to better understand where I’m standing.

Edit: this is not an abusive relationship, nobody is in danger from the other person, and there are no children involved. Just the feeling that it’s not working out anymore, that’s it’s become harder and harder over the last 4 years, that partner can’t accept my shortcomings while expecting me to accept theirs, and very poor decisions that led us down a path we’re having a hard time recovering from (materially and emotionally). Like something broke that can never be put back together.

Also, we’re not married and are renting. We file taxes separately and as far as the law is concerned common law requires some paperwork which we never did. So if we split we just walk away with what each has, we “only” have to figure out how to divide the stuff we owned together (appliances and that kind of stuff)

(Edit: I read everything yall had to say and this convo has been more helpful and uplifting than any other conversation I’ve had about this. Thanks guys🥹)

After a bad break up, I moved back into my mom’s at 36 to focus on myself and get my shit teogether. I take better care of myself, and it really shows. I've lost weight and gained muscle. My skin looks better, my clothes fits better. My overall appearance overall has improved.

Now I'm 37. I'm hot now, but I am still unemployed, and still living at my mom’s. I get more attention when I'm outside, but at this low point of my life, attention is the last thing i want. Women are stopping me on the street just to talk. I'll be at the store and when I randomly look up, people are staring at me. I feel like a unicorn walking around.

It came to a head the other day when I went to a friend's event with his coworkers. As I go pay for my drink ticket, his boss goes “[Your friend] said you were broke, but he didn't tell me you were pretty”.

I feel like shit man. I know my financial status doesn't define my worth as a person, but it doesn’t make me feel good. (Also my friend sucks, but that's not the focus here). I feel like I can't talk about all the weirdness I'm experiencing. My job situation is embarrassing, and talking about my glow up sounds like bragging.

I’m just in a weird space right, and it’d be nice to hear from other men about it.